


Always There

by Linkstargazing



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5390156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linkstargazing/pseuds/Linkstargazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link is heart broken over losing his best friend, but Rhett believes they’ll be together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always There

Link sat up in bed upon waking. All around him was the dark of his bedroom and to his right, the soft breathing of his sleeping wife. His throat clenched as the real world drowned out the last of his pleasant dreams. It was as if the dreamworld and reality had switched places—everything was all right in his sleep, but the waking world was a nightmare, which he could never escape. His best friend of over thirty years had been right there with him, his reassuring touch still seemingly present along his arm and back. It felt so real; he was so real. But this nightmare proved otherwise.

He could never see Rhett again. Not in the flesh, anyway. The body had already been cremated and was now residing in a river (their river) on the other side of the country. The one person Link could ever think of as his security blanket, his only real brother in the world… gone forever.

Link scowled angrily down at himself in the attempt to hold back the hot tears threatening to spill over. He’d cried quite enough, in his opinion. It’d been a week. Rubbing his red eyes with his fists, he slipped out of bed and walked into the bathroom. First thing he saw when turning on the light was his reflection. Without his glasses it wasn’t clear exactly how unkempt he appeared outwardly, but he assumed he must’ve looked just as terrible as he felt. He washed his face with cold water under the sink faucet in hopes to feel at least the slightest bit refreshed. But when he took a closer look in the mirror, he could have passed as a zombie. The past week seemed to have aged him five years in the face, with that never-ceasing frown, eyelids drooping as if he was constantly tired and disappointed, and the neglect of shaving. He figured the last to be some form of tribute to Rhett, as dumb as that may have sounded.

Tribute to Rhett? Link thought as he ran his fingers over the growing stubble. What would Rhett care if he did anything for him anymore? The guy is nothing but ash for crying out loud. He could just forget about him and get another guy to carry on their business—currently put on potentially permanent stand-by—and be a whole new duo. Rhett would never know! This time the tears had spilled over and Link let it all come out. His fists trembled on the counter as he lay his forehead down on them. Why was he kidding himself? He’d never forget nor replace Rhett. So unless he wanted to carry on as a lone, sad comedian on the internet, his entertaining career was over for good. Not that he cared about the business anymore; half of it no longer existed. Link was more or less retired, all things considered.

The disheveled man stayed there against the counter, having to drop to his knees when he grew too tired to stand. It wasn’t long before his tear ducts ran dry once again, but his shaking never lessened as the minutes passed. In his desperation he put his hands together, bowed his head, and whispered, “Please, God…” He didn’t know what exactly he was praying for, but he wasn’t sure what else to do, besides continue to let his loneliness eat at him. What he ultimately wanted to say, though, was to give his best friend back. But he wasn’t stupid. Miracles like that just didn’t happen—a simple yet hard truth to swallow, he’d learned.

Giving up on that, Link tried thinking about something else; get his mind off this overwhelming feeling crushing his chest. His train of thought, despite him, veered back to the lovely dream from which he woke up.

 

 

It had an otherworldly atmosphere, very bright, beautiful, and peaceful, like he was standing atop the clouds and looking towards the sun. And he wasn’t alone there, for he sensed a familiar presence standing behind him, eyes boring into the back of his head. Link knew who it was without peeking, and he was comforted by his friend’s hand lightly cupping his shoulder. He glanced down at Rhett’s hand and covered it with his own. He was going to turn back and give the guy a smile, but Rhett came around his other side and stood next to him, his arm draped over Link’s shoulders. Sharing a short laugh between them, the two gazed at each other with broad smiles that said ‘I’m so happy to see you again.’

Rhett then came in front of him and spread his arms out. Realizing he wanted a hug, Link gladly met him halfway and squeezed his torso into his own so he couldn’t get away. They gradually sank to the ground together, faces buried in each other’s necks. The embrace was euphoric to say the least. And it went on a long while, as neither seemed to want to end this moment. A moment Link never thought he would ever get.

Link wanted to say so much to his best friend, things that he never would’ve told him before. But those words, somehow, didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered here was Rhett. He opened his eyes to look at the man again. But before he could lift up his head to see Rhett’s face, something strange caught his eye. Surrounding them was a wall of soft, white feathers.

 

 

The somber man stared down at the floor tiles with his face screwed up after fully recalling the dream. Some parts left him confused, but overall, just plain angry. He felt betrayed in having been presented such a glorious moment, only to have it fade away from him suddenly, and leave him with the awful truth and devastation in his waking life. He shook the irrational feeling away then, telling himself there was no point in brooding over it. That’s what Rhett would say, he reasoned, and the guy had usually been right.

He was cold there sitting on the bathroom floor, and he wrapped his arms around himself. Loneliness itself was cold, so it wouldn’t matter whether or not he returned to bed. Even his beloved wife who slept beside him couldn’t completely fill the void of his being left alone. She had a different place in his heart, after all. Just as important, but different nonetheless.

Link didn’t want to go back to bed anyway, despite his exhaustion. He didn’t want to go back and revisit that dreamworld. To have to settle for the Rhett made up in his subconscious, because it wasn’t him—it was quite literally an imaginary friend.

Funny, he thought, how the Rhett in his mind’s eye appeared to be some kind of angel. The ‘wall of feathers’ he’d seen had to have been angel wings. Was that some sort of dream symbolism that he’d died and gone to heaven? That would explain the setting as well. Link thought this over for a while, wondering if there was any significance in any of it. Eh, probably not, he shrugged to himself. Probably just his own mind telling him to stop moping around and accept that his best friend was finally at peace and no longer suffering in a hospital bed. That it was all for the best, after what happened a week before on the road.

Gosh, but he was happy that Rhett had held on long enough for him to at least say good-bye. He had that much to hold onto, even if it did sound a little selfish. It was his last chance to say ‘I love you’ and ‘You were the best best friend and brother I could hope to have.’ It’d been tough to get all the words out without jumbling them up and choking back sobs in the middle of them, but he had managed. And Rhett had given him a weak pat for it.

It was what Rhett had said following Link’s good-bye that, at this moment, made Link pause. He’d said through mangled, burnt lips, “We’ll see each other again, Link. Until then, okay?”

He kept repeating Rhett’s parting words to him over and over in his head, just as he did the night following the hospital visit. Hopelessly obsessed with them. Never wanting to forget them. And it was clear that his subconscious had wanted them to be true, taking it upon itself to make them so. He wondered if it was Rhett’s intent to haunt his dreams. Or if he truly believed they will join up again in the future. Either way, he began to actually feel grateful for experiencing it in his sleep. The only way he could in this reality.

A strange calm fell over Link and his body stopped trembling. He was tired, he told himself, he should go back to bed now. Slowly he gathered himself up from the floor and trudged out and back into the bedroom, and then collapsed on his side of the small bed. Sleep came all too easily.

 

Link’s dreamscape dropped him back in the same place atop the clouds, the soft glowing white stretching as far as the eye can see. In this vast sea of light, he searched for another presence.

But he found no one in any direction. ‘Where did he go?’ his dreamself asked aloud. No one heard.

Anxious in his solitude, he crossed his arms and stared down at his shoes with a frown. His imaginary Rhett was gone. And ever so slowly, he watched the ground around him turn from pure white to gray. The clouds began to lose their fluff as well.

They didn’t seem threatening, like storm clouds—just dreary. The light of the overhead sky dimmed to match Link’s gloom.

Why wasn’t he here? How did he disappear? He’s supposed to always be there!

The gray clouds shifted below his feet, and he looked closely at their changing texture. These weren’t clouds. He was standing on a field of—

Ashes. He fell to his hands and knees in distress.

Rhett wasn’t going to come back.

A strong gust jostled his hair. He picked his head up from the ground, and watched as the whirling winds blew away the ashes right in front of him, resembling a sandstorm in a desert. Within seconds the field of ash was completely whooshed away. And what was uncovered made him gasp—or try to—but all the sound he could muster was swallowed up by the rush of the river. Suddenly his suspension in the air was expired and he fell into the rapids.

All control of himself was ripped away from him in the unbearable cold and startling swiftness of the deep blackness. In the midst of the water’s crashing and sloshing, his head would resurface at random, just enough time to gulp in air and look in the direction of which the river headed. When he was dragged under again, his limbs came in contact with sharp rocks hidden in the depths. He was drowning! Drowning! his head screamed repeatedly.

 

 

He awoke to a thud, which resulted in a sharp pain that shot through his shoulder and down his arm. Eyes darting everywhere, he realized he was sprawled on the floor between his side of the bed and the nightstand, and his knocked glasses now resting on his chest. He put them on slowly, groaning and hissing at the hardwood corner that struck him when he must’ve rolled off.

“Looks like that really hurt. Maybe you should put some guard rails up.”

Link jumped to his feet so fast it made him lightheaded. That wasn’t his wife’s voice. Did someone break in? Was it a burglar, or a serial killer? In the dark room he couldn’t make out whether or not another person was standing there. He was scared out of his wits. He stuttered back, “Who’s there?”

“Do you really have to ask?” the disembodied voice said, sounding like a distant echo. He didn’t know where to look. It was like being in a spacious cave trying to locate someone.

He tried again with a slightly more dignified tone, “Who. Are you?”

“You’re guardian angel, of course.”

“Wha–!” He stumbled back into the nightstand. That definitely wasn’t the answer he expected. It was so absurd he didn’t know how to react. Was this how serial killers talked before stabbing their victims?

“Shh-sh! You’re one more outburst away from getting hollered at.” On que, Christy mumbled and turned to her other side in the bed.

His overwhelming amount of confusion was making him angry. He wasn’t going to allow this guy to get the best of him. “What do you want from me?” His eyes darted in every direction, even though the voice didn’t seem to be in the room at all.

“I don’t want anything, Link. But I do advise you go ahead and lie back down. You need to take it easy.”

It knew his name! He was talking to a ghost, he was sure of it. His house was haunted! Part of him wanted to run out the door screaming, and the other wanted to jump back in bed and hide under the covers. His legs were spread as if he were about to attempt both at once. Instead he did the next best thing. “Christy! Christy, wake up. There’s a ghost!”

“No! Don’t wake Christy up! Are you crazy?”

To Link’s bewilderment, his wife didn’t even stir after he’d shouted. “What’s going on? Why can’t she hear me?”

“I said don’t wake her up, Link! Just listen to me for a second!”

“Oh, please spare us, spirit.” He had fallen to the floor again, desperation heavy in his pleading. “Go haunt someone else!”

A laugh rang in his ears. “I’m not haunting you, Link! I’m not a ghost. I’m just trying to do my job—which is to watch over you, if you were curious. But you’re making it kind of difficult.”

“Watch over…? What?”

“Yeah, man, I got the job as your guardian angel. Can you believe it?”

“But- but who are you?”

The voice sighed long and hard. “You know, it really hurts that you haven’t figured it out yet. Thought we were closer than that.”

Was the spirit insinuating what he thought it was? His hands balled up into fists shaking in exasperation. “Don’t you dare lie to me and say that you’re… that you’re him.”

“Well, it looks like we’ll be going back and forth all night then, if you won’t take my word for it. But, yes, I was.”

Fresh tears sprung to his eyes. This ghost was going to torment him until he went insane! “Please, just leave me alone. I can’t take this.”

“Hey now, I thought you’d be happy about this. Don’t you miss me?”

The ghost wasn’t going to drop the mask by the looks of it, he realized. Maybe if he just went along…if he let himself believe what has to be a lie, he wouldn’t feel so alone.

Wiping his wet cheeks, he whined, “Yes, I miss you so much, Rhett.”

“I missed you, too, Link.” The voice seemed sincerely relieved and happy. And, the more he thought about it, it truly did start to sound like the familiar deep voice of his best friend. He wanted to believe it.

“So where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

There was another sigh. “Different plane of existence. It’s also why I sound like this. I talk directly into your head, like your conscience or something, and no one else can hear me.” The voice, Rhett, explained it so casually, as if it were general knowledge. Made it easy to buy into. “But! I think I’ve figured out a way that you can see me.”

This made his ears perk up. “Really? How?”

“We can interact directly when you’re dreaming. Don’t you remember meeting up with me earlier?”

His memory first revisited the nightmare. It gave him shivers just thinking about that merciless river. And even earlier when he felt his heart break in seeing those ashes. Shaking the awful mental images out of his mind, he went further back to one of the most pleasant dreams he’d ever had. “I do.”

“Good, that’s good. Well, that’s what I look like.” He gave a snicker. “No real difference other than these babies. You know how much of a dream come true these are for me?” Link knew without a doubt he was talking about the wings. He only got a glimpse of them at the end of the dream, but he knew just by that glimpse that they were magnificent. And definitely the perfect gift for a guy such as Rhett. 

He couldn’t help but smile a little in hearing the true joy in his voice. “I can imagine.”

“Hey, Link?”

“Yeah?”

“You should really go back to bed now. Sun’s about to come up. We can talk more about this tomorrow after you’ve had your coffee.”

He looked over to the window and saw the sky had brightened the slightest bit. Now that Rhett had mentioned it, he really was exhausted after enduring this emotional rollercoaster of a night, and very sore. And the guy was usually right.

After he got comfortable back under the covers beside his wife, he whispered, “Hey, Rhett?”

“M-hm?”

“You’re going to be with me all the time now?”

“Always.”

“This is going to be a little awkward, don’tcha think?”

Rhett laughed quietly. “For you, maybe. But I’ll take a little awkwardness over no longer being there for you. Now go to sleep—I’ll meet you there.”


End file.
